Bolton 2012?

By BEN SMITH

08/30/2010 09:51 AM EDT

Former U.N. Ambassador and foreign-policy bomb thrower John Bolton won't "reject it out of hand" in an interview with the Daily Caller:

“[I]t is a very great honor that anybody would even think of asking. I’m obviously not a politician. I’ve never run for any federal elective office at all and, you know, it is something that would obviously require a great deal of effort,” he said. “What I do think, though, and what concerns me, is the lack of focus generally in the national debate about national security issues. Now, I understand the economy is in a ditch and people are concerned about it, but our adversaries overseas are not going to wait for us to get our economic house in order.”

One interesting data point here: He's the only current or former Republican official of any formal stature to appear at the hard-line activist and blogger Pam Geller's rally at ground zero on Sept. 11. Bolton e-mailed me that he — like Andrew Breitbart — is sending a taped message to the rally featuring the Dutch right-wing figure Geert Wilders. Aides to Newt Gingrich and Ginni Thomas both told me that, despite being listed on Geller's press release, they aren't associated with the event, which is also at war with other anti-mosque activists.

In any case, Bolton's participation strikes me as a matter of dipping a toe into public politics of a kind.